Pro-Palestinian activists are losing hope Vice President Kamala Harris will break with President Joe Biden's policies on the war in Gaza, despite initial optimism when she took over the top of the ticket, The Hill reported.
"To many of the activists, Harris' talking points about maintaining more or less unconditional military support for Israel just sound like a continuation of the Biden policy and approach," Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told the outlet.
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"Admittedly, it's hard for her as a sitting vice president to stray too far from the Biden line, but even with that there is still room for her to go further than she has."
The left expressed frustration after Democrats refused to feature a Palestinian American speaker at the Democratic National Convention last month.
"Squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was among lawmakers and others criticizing the decision. Arab American Institute founder James Zogby called it "a boneheaded move that ended up casting a pall over everything."
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Israel's war with Hamas, which began after the terror group unleashed a series of brutal attacks against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, has split the Democratic Party in half. Thousands of Democrats refused to endorse Biden in the primaries over his handling of the war, and activists are warning that Harris could face the same fate.
Pro-Palestinian activists say they're prepared to maintain the status quo and treat Harris' campaign as they did Biden's, with plans to protest at campaign stops and even try to get progressives to vote against her on Nov. 5.
They had expressed hope that Harris would pivot in her Israel policy after meeting privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C., in July rather than attending his address to Congress. But, Elgindy said that a lot "of that hope and excitement around Harris has since dissipated."
Kate McManus ✉
Kate McManus is a New Jersey-based Newsmax writer who's spent more than two decades as a journalist.
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